the Chemistry holic

tales to tell.

March 25, 2009

An update on my old career aspiration.

I mentioned in the career aspiration post that I am going to update on an interview with a friend of mine, who was a digital artist/graphic designer. So here it goes:

*-A Tea with Ocarina-sensei-*
(Note: T - me, O - my friend)

T: Why did you choose this career path?

O: I've been drawing a lot since young. I love doodling. So when I was about to choose my career path, I wanted to do something that (1) I was truly interested in; and (2) I was relatively good at. Since I probably would be stuck with the career I chose for all my life, it better be something I enjoy.

T: Yeah, I agree. It's very tiring to do something which you don't like, especially for life. But what inspires you to be a digital artist?

O: For being an "artist", there's not a certain person or an event that especially inspired me. As I said I loved drawing all along, so I'm...self-inspired? Haha. Maybe I should say my mother helped me the most to be who I am today, because she was always supportive and encouraged me to draw more, as well as always gave me comments to help me improve.

For being a "digital" artist, the thing that inspired me was Microsoft Word clipart. I was quite bad with traditional media such as oil color or charcoal, and I was a bit disheartened that maybe I couldn't become a fine artist. Then windows system came into normal families (before that it was DOS system which had almost no graphic at all), and for the first time in my life I realized that computer graphics looked just as good too. Oh yeah, there's no heart-moving stories to what actually inspires me. (Laughs.)

T: Okay, I see. So what are your thoughts and feelings for this career?

O: I love it, because it's something that I have passion for. Though sometimes after working on a piece of work for ten hours straight, I might swear that I would never never ever draw because it's so exhausting. But before I knew it, I was drawing again.

Being in art industry has this advantage: It's romantic, impressive, and makes people quickly admire you (haha). If I say "I do accounting", people won't say "Wow, I adore how you count the numbers!". But they'll always say "I wish to draw as nice as you". Seriously, this job is tiring. Long hours, high competition, may encounter unreasonable client, may have last-minute changes... But as long as you have the passion, everything's okay.

T: Whoa, it does sound tiring to me. Speaking of which, besides all the monotonous drawing and more drawing, did anything interesting ever happened when you took this job?

O: One interesting fact: I'm enlightened with how tight deadlines could be. When you think it's the tightest already, there's always a tighter one.

And basically everything that's said in "Murphy’s law - about designers". Artists/designers need to be able to 苦中作乐. (Translation: find joy in your boring work to make it seems interesting to you.)

T: Anyway, do you have any advice to for those who would like to choose this career path?

O: To those who're not sure if it's a good career to choose: Unless you're really really interested, don't jump onto the bandwagon. There're lots of digital artists nowadays, but it's hard to be a good one. In my poly days about one-third of my batch couldn't graduate. They either quitted, failed certain modules, or transferred to another course when they found that it was not as easy as they thought. This is a tiring path, seriously. Pictures are pleasant to look at, but not easy to draw. To be able to cope, you must practise in your free time. So you'd better be interested in it.To those who would choose this career: develop your own style. You can't go anywhere if you just follow someone else's style.

T: Hear that, digital-artist-to-be guys? To wrap this interview up, do you have any comments to make regarding your career?

O: Being good in art itself is not enough, because it's so hard to really stand out from the rest with one skill. Try to develop a second advantage of yours, say, storytelling. Thus, you may not be the best artist, and you may not be the best storyteller. But two skills combined, you now have more chances to be better than the other "digital artist + storytellers", because there'll be fewer of them.

T: Okay, people. Do you have what it takes to be a digital artist/graphic designer? And thanks to Ocarina-sensei who took some time off from her already overflowing schedule to help me complete this interview session.

- - -
PS Hey Jesslyn, thought maybe you would be interested in this simple interview format (between friends) to help you in your career.

by ツバサ at 11:58:00 PM
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konichiwa.

A blog created solely for H2 Chemistry under the command of Ms Jee (now Mr Tan).

To all Chemistry-haters: keep clear of this blog.

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watashi.

Jaz.

A student at MI. And that's why this blog is for school work purposes.

A manga/anime fan. And therefore becomes a digital aritst - in training.

Loves to dream and imagine the impossible. And so an amateur writer.

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the 09S2 preiodic table.

iskandar aka AI
ashvin
yuan sheng
dian
jin jie
been ting
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wen jie
jihan
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keet
dao jian
maxin
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jaz aka ツバサ
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